


The Taste of Ink

by AidaRonan



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Anal Sex, Asthmatic Steve Rogers, Biting, Dacryphilia, M/M, Musician Steve Rogers, Oral Sex, Piercings, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Punk Bucky Barnes, Punk Steve Rogers, Scratching, Tattoos, Valentine's Day, gagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:00:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24323176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AidaRonan/pseuds/AidaRonan
Summary: It's Valentine's Day and if Bucky has to make another Red Hot Red Velvet frap, he'll personally find Cupid and murder him with his own arrows. It's been six long months since he broke up with his ex when an old familiar face walks into his coffee shop.And if Bucky still remembers his coffee order after two years, well, it's not at all because he wants every inch of him from his high tops to his tattooed neck.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 39
Kudos: 670
Collections: Sweet and Gentle Steve/Bucky





	The Taste of Ink

**Author's Note:**

> Who wants a sort of Valentine's Day fic in late May? 
> 
> (I found this p much finished on my computer from God only knows how long ago and idk why I never put it on here)
> 
> ((Yes, I stole the title from where you think I stole the title.))

Everything is covered in Pepto Bismol pink, and if Bucky has to mix up one more Red Hot Red Velvet frap, he’s going to vomit in it first. Never mind that putting “hot” into the name of a fucking frap has led to a million unpleasant interactions with a million unpleasant people, Bucky hates this holiday with every single piece of his soul.

Okay, maybe he’s usually completely indifferent to this holiday.

But this year, he fucking loathes it. And he has every goddamn right.

Six months since he’s had even a nibble from someone he might be interested in dating or, hell, just screwing. Six months since his ex unceremoniously showed up on the stoop of his apartment building with a cardboard box of his shit, told him he’d started seeing someone new, and then just walked away like they hadn’t spent over a year together.

“Yeah, I’ll try the Red Hot Red Velvet,” the next customer says, and Bucky can’t stop the sigh that seems to go on eternally before he peels himself away from the counter to mix it up. She doesn’t even glance at the tip jar when he hands it over to her.

Fair enough.

Things slow down after about 9:30 as usual. All the folks lucky enough to actually start work at nine are done breezing through for sorry-I’m-late cappuccinos for their bosses. He's left with the slow trickle of writers and graphic designers. At least most of them have regular orders that come in regular colors.

At 9:47, Bucky picks up a rag and starts mopping away the mess from the morning rush. Maybe he’ll install Tinder again. Or Grindr. Is he up for that sort of thing? Some we-’re-both-alone-on-Valentines-Day NSA sex?

Christ, it’s exhausting to even think about wading through those apps for someone he could tolerate screwing around with.

He scrubs at a spot of chocolate syrup, forcing it to separate from the stainless steel countertop. The bell over the door tinkles, and he glances up, already preparing to drop the rag and wash his hands. And then he freezes, staring down at the linoleum like someone just slapped him.

Holy shit, it’s him. Holy shit, how long has it...? Jesus, Bucky. Move.

He clears his throat and makes it to the sink. He doesn’t notice the water’s too hot until he's hissing through is teeth, and then he realizes the guy’s just standing at the counter, fidgeting. Shit. Company policy is to greet the customer before you do anything else. But the guy, Steve, knows that Bucky's not ignoring him, right? He’s not one of those jittery suited-up assholes who takes it out on Bucky because they haven’t had a work week under 80 hours since 2005. He’s always been nice.

“I’ll be right with you,” Bucky says belatedly, laughing nervously while he finishes scrubbing his hands and, Christ _why_ is he laughing nervously? He sounds like an idiot. “Large half-caff extra hot latte, right?”

“I can’t believe you remember that,” Steve says, fingertips resting on the counter. When Bucky turns he sees Steve’s added a few new tattoos. He didn’t have his knuckles done before, just every inch of both arms and a couple places on his neck. He has them now, S-A-R-A-H splayed across one hand from thumb to pinky. His honey blond hair is a near-neon shade of turquoise at the tips where it flops over his forehead, either side of his head shaved to about an inch in length.

Bucky swallows so hard he can hear it. Steve’s lived in his memories off and on for a long time, but there’s no comparison to reality. It’s like an old VHS versus IMAX 3D.

“Hasn’t been that long,” Bucky says with a shrug, pulling a mug down off the shelf. Steve always stays to sip his coffee and draw. Bucky flicks his eyes over to him and finds the battered sketchbook tucked under his right armpit.

Also, why the hell is Steve wearing red plaid? Bucky has a complaint.

“Who’s Sarah by the way?” Bucky does not sound as casual as he’d meant to.

“It’s been two years. Guess it depends on your concept of time.” Steve smiles at him, lip ring glinting, and all of Bucky’s anger and frustration regarding his love life or lack thereof melts out of him like hot wax. He pulls his own piercing between his teeth.

“And she’s my mother,” Steve says. Bucky feels a sharp stab of relief, followed by an even sharper stab when he realizes that Steve’s right on the money with the time frame.

Shit. It really has been two years. He’d been working up the nerve for weeks to ask Steve out back then, and then one day Steve just didn’t show up. And then he continued to not show up. And then Bucky made himself agree when Asshole Alex set him up with his Asshole Friend. And then…

“That is what you want, right?” Bucky asks, fidgeting and holding up the mug. “Before I make it.”

“Sure, yeah.”

Bucky starts on the drink, letting his mind run wild from the moment he starts pouring until the second he slides it across the counter, his best bad attempt at an artist’s palette decorating the foam. Steve smiles down at it fondly.

“So where’ve you been for two years?” Bucky asks.

“Got a job offer I couldn’t refuse out in LA. It all happened really fast.”

“You back? Or just visiting?”

“I’m back. I told them I was homesick. They told me they couldn’t lose me and gave me a fancy laptop and a monthly stipend for home office expenses.”

“Nice,” Bucky says.

“Nice.” Steve nods.

“Got a hot date for the holiday?” Bucky asks, and Steve laughs.

“Do I look like the kind of guy who goes on hot dates, James?”

And dammit, had Bucky really been so nervous two years ago that he’d never…? Yep, yep he had. Steve had walked into the coffee shop one day in shredded gray skinny jeans and a Fugazi shirt and Bucky had lost his shit entirely.

“Bucky,” Bucky says.

“What?”

“Call me Bucky. No one calls me James except my Ma,” he says. “And if you don’t look like the kinda person who goes on hot dates, then people ain’t looking.”

Shit. What? WHAT? What in the whole all-encompassing fuck did Bucky just say with his actual flappy mouth lips?

Both of Steve’s eyebrows go up. The silver ring in his left catches the light with the movement.

“You do know you don’t have to flirt with me to get a tip, right?” Steve asks, already shoving a $5 bill into the jar.

Bucky sticks his hands deep into his apron and shrugs.

“I know that right around the time I worked up the nerve to ask you out, you disappeared for two years. Maybe that’s why you don’t date, Steve. There’s probably someone back in LA pining for you right now.”

Okay, that was a lot of words. Cool, cool, cool. Where’s a bisexual panic meme when you need one?

“You…” The sketchbook falls from under Steve’s arm and claps against the tile. “Shit.”

And poor Steve actually knocks his head against the counter on his way up. He rubs tattooed fingers between blond-blue strands.

“I grabbed this sketchbook today. Got a new one a long time ago, but this one still has a couple blank pages. It’s the one I always brought in, you know? Or, there was another one before you started working here, but this is the one I used mostly.”

Bucky leans against the counter, putting one elbow on the pastry display case.

Steve sighs and slides the book to him.

The first few pages are pretty innocuous. A coffee cup on a saucer, a dog sitting outside the window, a cinnamon roll dripping with icing. And then Bucky’s breath stops. The next sketch is of him, leaning on the counter with a half-smile on his face. The next sketch his of him too. Sometimes they’re broken up by other things and other people, but there’s so many of Bucky. Including a lovely doodle of that time he slipped on the freshly-mopped floor and busted his ass.

“Thanks for that, Steve,” he mutters, laughing.

“I know you think I drew it because it was funny, and it was, but the whole truth is—” And then Steve winces and shakes his head. “No, nope, never mind.”

“The whole truth is…” Bucky waves his hand in an invitation to continue. Please don’t stop now. God he wants to frame every single one of these.

"No, it's awful."

"Steve."

“Just… Your legs are nice.” And fuck if Steve’s entire face doesn’t turn red, the blush coloring the pale white skin behind his neck tattoos and disappearing into the collar of his plaid button-down. Bucky looks closer. The rest of the drawing is simple and more comic in style, but yeah, Steve spent a lot of time shading in his thighs and calves in his skinny jeans.

Bucky tears his eyes away from the sketchbook to find Steve’s. So so blue. He remembers a few times when Steve came in with honest-to-fuck eyeliner on, smudged all around in such a way that Bucky just knew it had to have been a remnant from the night before. He should wear it more often. Always maybe. Then again, those baby blues don’t need any help to be absolutely devastating.

“You should see your legs now,” Bucky says, practically purring, and meaning every word because Steve has never once come into his coffee shop in anything that didn’t stick to his calves. And, fuck, if Bucky wasn’t alone in the shop between rushes, he’d already be faking a stomach ache to yank Steve back to his apartment. Bucky swallows, his mouth feeling dry, his skin too tight.

How, after two fucking years, does he still want to taste every inch of him?

How did he not know two years ago that Steve would’ve let him?

Then again, the job offer would’ve still happened, and Bucky wouldn’t have wanted to hold him back, and it probably would’ve just ended in heartache for them both. Maybe it’s for the best that things panned out how they did.

“They’re, uh, doing this show tonight,” Steve says. “Anti-Valentine’s thing. At the Rack.”

“Who’s they?”

“Agents of Shield, Free Socialist Healthcare, Corporate Sex Dungeon, the Howling Commandos.”

“Oh fuck, no way. The Howlies?”

“First show in seven years. Even got Peggy Carter to fly back from London. I’m filling in on drums actually.”

“No fucking way,” Bucky says. “I’m in.”

“We can hang out after too, if you want.”

“Counter-offer. We hang out before,” Bucky says. “Call me impatient, but I already waited two years for that date.”

“Thought it hasn’t been that long?”

“I had to say that. Couldn’t just admit I’ll remember your coffee order until I die.”

“Just did though.”

“I seem to be running off at the mouth a lot today. Next I’ll tell you how I’ve wanted to put my mouth on every single one of your tattoos since the moment I saw you. Especially that watercolor bi pride thing that runs down your neck. How far down does that go exactly?”

And Steve blushes again.

“It…” And Steve undoes the top three buttons of his shirt and pushes it to the side. Splashes of color continue all the way across his delicate collarbone to the curve of his shoulder. And sweet Christ on a big yellow bus, there are so many tattoos disappearing farther into his shirt.

“Fuck,” Bucky breathes, unable to stop it because Steve is the hottest thing he’s ever seen and he wants to climb over the counter, lock the front door, and hope he doesn’t get fired for desecrating the pastry case.

“You could, by the way,” Steve says, standing up a little straighter. “Almost all of them. As long as you let me bite my way up your thighs.”

“I hate that I have to keep working right now. I want you to know that.”

“I bet,” Steve says, picking up his sketchbook and his coffee. He makes his way to his usual table, sitting down and moving to one of the last empty pages.

When Bucky’s shift ends in the mid-afternoon, he’s still there, leaning against the counter while Bucky pulls his apron off.

“Here,” Steve says, falling in step with him on the sidewalk outside. He hands Bucky a piece of thick cream-white paper pulled from the sketchbook. Bucky takes it and stares down. It’s him again, head thrown back in laughter. He hadn’t laughed like that all day despite a decidedly improved mood. Which means that Steve drew this from memory.

“That job offer you took,” Bucky starts, barely managing to avoid walking face-first into a light pole while he stares openly at Steve’s art.

“Yeah?”

“Please tell me you get to draw.”

Steve lights up instantly, and Bucky’s sad he missed the exact second it happened. Because he hears it seep into every single one of Steve’s next words and glances up to catch the brightest smile he’s ever seen in his entire life.

“That’s literally all I do actually. Stuff for ads, but it’s not traditional and cookie cutter. They want creative and cutting edge and different, and they’ve been so open to letting me do whatever I think is best.”

“I’d love to see it sometime,” Bucky says. And he means it. He wants to learn everything there is to know about Steve Rogers (and yeah, okay, maybe he wants to start with ripping open the plaid shirt and scattering buttons all across the vast expanse of reality, but he’s only human.)

“This is me, if you want to see it now,” Steve says, jerking his head toward a brownstone. Steve can afford a brownstone. In Brooklyn. No wonder he disappeared for two years.

And Bucky can’t help himself because he’s been thinking about this all day.

“There are a lot of things I’d like to see now.”

“Then I’ll show you after.” Steve unhooks his keys from his belt loop and lets them both in. Bucky probably has his hands on him before they’re even inside, wrapping around him from behind and snaking up Steve’s torso under the plaid shirt. And Steve may be a skinny punk guy, but he’s toned. Not count-every-ab toned, but plenty firm beneath Bucky’s fingers.

They head right for the stairs, stumbling up them because Bucky’s pressed against Steve’s back and can’t seem to make himself let up even an inch. Because Steve is warm and close and has a taut stomach and hair that smells a lot like mint.

When they finally spill onto the landing, Steve flips around in his arms and Bucky’s hands form claws on instinct, blunt fingernails dragging across skin.

“I gotta,” Steve says, and the sketchbook tumbles to the floor for the second time when he frames Bucky’s face with skilled hands and pushes up onto his tiptoes to slot their mouths together. He tastes like coffee.

“Which?” Bucky chokes out, mouth already moving to Steve’s jaw. Steve starts backing toward the nearest door, never breaking contact, his hands winding into Bucky’s dark curls and tugging softly.

They fall onto Steve’s bed, sheets and blankets still in disarray from the previous night. Bucky shoves the pile to the floor, startled by an angry meow because apparently the blankets weren’t empty. Something black worms its way out and darts into the hall, jingling the whole way.

“Shit, sorry.”

“He’s fine,” Steve says. “He’ll get over it.”

Hands wrap around the nape of Bucky’s neck and drag him back in. He moans when Steve’s teeth press into his bottom lip, capturing it and tugging hard. His hips roll automatically and then Steve’s moaning too, his body moving into the friction.

When Steve finally lets Bucky go with bruised lips, Bucky knows exactly what he wants.

“How fond are you of this shirt and the fact that it still buttons?”

“I can sew,” Steve says, and Bucky takes that as an invitation to grab both sides and yank hard. He’s never found the sound of threads ripping more satisfying than in that moment. Buttons ping onto the walls and the floor and then he’s face-to-face with Steve’s bare chest, with the delicate concave of his ribs, with so much ink that Bucky wonders if Steve’s tattoo artist isn’t living in their own Brooklyn brownstone somewhere, fully furnished by the hours of work they put onto this gorgeous body.

He aims his mouth right for Steve’s neck and makes good on another one of his wants, licking and mouthing at pink, purple, blue, pink, purple, blue until his teeth sink into Steve’s shoulder and Steve bucks up off the bed.

“I have one too,” Bucky says. He pulls his work tee off, throwing it wherever. Steve’s nails rake across his bare chest almost instantly, and Bucky forgets all the rest of the words he ever knew.

Steve finds what he meant on his own, nails giving way to fingertips that trace the stylized flag over his ribs. Then Steve wiggles and shifts and leans up to kiss it, tongue sliding down the blue line.

“I want you,” Bucky says.

“I want you too.”

“Do you want top or…?”

“Both,” Steve says, apparently finding another tattoo he likes because Bucky feels his mouth hot and wet on the other side of his ribs, flowing down his side to trace over his tattoo of the solar system. He gives Pluto a delicate nip.

“I want you first,” Bucky says, hand sliding up Steve’s thigh, not stopping until he’s gripping him through his jeans. Steve writhes underneath him and presses a moan into Bucky’s chest.

“We gotta,” Steve starts, but whatever it is dies on his lips when Bucky gives him another squeeze.

“Gotta?”

“Pants,” Steve says. “Too many pants.”

And fuck if Bucky can disagree with that. He, somehow, makes himself roll out from between Steve’s legs to lay beside him. They’re frantic then, Bucky kicking off his hideous non-slip black work shoes so he can get his skinnies off. Steve shrugs off the ruined shirt and works on his Chucks, swearing and pulling laces out so he can get them off. Bucky’s glad he has to do it though, because Bucky’s already down to his boxer-briefs and that means he can watch Steve literally peel himself out of his jeans one leg at a time.

It also means he gets to learn that Steve is really really committed to his temporary role with the Commandos, the screaming red and white wolf inked across his pelvis.

Bucky doesn’t stare at it long, his eyes sliding farther south to Steve’s erection. The sight of it (and just how much of it there is) has Bucky’s veins glowing white hot. He's Venus, forever trapped too close to the sun, eternally boiling. Bucky licks his lips, chokes out some kind of question, and has his mouth on Steve the second he hears the "Y" sound form in the back of his throat.

His cock is heavy on Bucky’s tongue, salty and heady. Bucky takes him deeper and deeper until he feels his shoulders seize up, throat closing automatically around the intrusion. Steve’s answering moan is choked and desperate.

“Holy shit, Buck.”

“Mmm.” Bucky pulls off, drool falling from his lips. He gasps a few breaths and takes him in again, slowly this time, bobbing his way up and down, letting Steve's length back into his mouth incrementally. Deeper, deeper. Until he’s gagging again, his eyes watering with the effort. And then Steve starts to fuck his throat, hands firmly gripping Bucky’s head to hold him in place. One thrust, two, three, four. Steve yanks him back by the hair just in time, staring down at him where he gulps in air.

“Fuck,” Bucky gasps, wiping away drool and tears with the back of his hand.

“Is that too much?” Steve asks, blunt nails raking softly across Bucky’s scalp.

“God, no.” It’s perfect and Bucky’s a little dizzy and he wants to do the same thing to Steve someday. A different day. Because right now he’s hungry for more and hungry for Steve in general.

“Good.” And Steve grips a handful of long brown curls and forces Bucky’s face back onto him.

They only stop when Bucky starts begging.

“You gotta fuck me, Stevie,” Bucky pants. “You gotta or I’m gonna pass out.”

“Stevie.” Steve smiles at him, then rolls toward the night stand, rummaging in the drawer. “I like that.” He tosses a condom out onto the bed and then digs around some more, mumbling curses before he starts throwing random stuff out onto the floor.

Bucky lays on the bed, trembling with want.

Steve finally finds the lube, stuck between a box of map pencils and a French-English dictionary. He hands it to Bucky.

“Do you—” they start at the same time, laughing nervously.

“You first,” Steve says.

“Was gonna ask if you speak French.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “No. I have this dream of going to Paris someday. The Louvre, you know. I got it thinking I’d teach myself a few things. Been collecting dust since.”

“Right,” Bucky says, thumbing the bottle. “What were you gonna say?”

“Do you want to get yourself wet or do you want me to?”

“What I really want is for you to be inside of me already,” Bucky says, “but I’ll do it. It’ll be faster.”

Steve nods and picks up the condom wrapper, squinting at the date and then squeezing it before he opens it up. Bucky’s already slicked up by the time Steve rolls it on.  
  
“Good?” Bucky asks.  
  
“Good.”

Bucky swings a leg over Steve, taking hold of his cock to spread lube down the latex before getting into position. Steve reaches up to grip his hips, holding Bucky steady while he slowly, so slowly eases down onto him.

It’s not a bad angle. Bucky rakes his eyes over Steve’s body, over every single line of ink and splash of color. He finds his nipples buried under lightly shaded black stars and run through with silver barbells. Bucky thumbs over the piercings, smiling when Steve shudders beneath him.

“You know you’re the sexiest punk in Brooklyn, right?” Bucky asks. Because Steve needs to know. Someone honestly needs to tell him every single goddamn day.

Bucky volunteers.

“It’s not fair to ask me questions right now,” Steve says. “My brain isn’t….”

“Yeah? How do I feel, Stevie?”

“Hot,” Steve says. “Tight. Wanna roll you over and—”

“Can in a minute.”

Bucky finishes seating himself on Steve and closes his eyes. This is always the best part, well besides the orgasms. Feeling full, stretched wide and open. For a few seconds, all he does is breathe and focus on having Steve inside of him. He can hear him panting and slowly leans forward to cup his ribs. Under his palms, they rise and fall quick and hot.

Bucky rolls his hips once experimentally, his lips twitching when Steve whispers out a curse.

“Wanna take me now?” Bucky asks, already beginning to undulate relentlessly. He’s got his eyes open again, palms braced on Steve’s chest, splayed over two trees that weave together intricately around the words, _No, you move._

He stares down at Steve’s face, at dark long lashes that contrast sharply with his skin. An audible gasp leaves Bucky's lungs when Steve’s eyes snap open, blown out pupils focusing on him with a hunger that burns something deep in Bucky’s core.

“Yeah, actually.”

Bucky’s on his back before he can even process. Steve’s small, but he knows how to create momentum, how to ally himself with gravity so that she does most of the work. He nudges Bucky’s knees farther apart with his own and settles between them, arms framing Bucky’s head, caging him in.

“Fuck,” Bucky says in awe, fitting his hands under Steve’s shoulder blades. One of Steve’s arms disappears between them, and Bucky feels him pressing in, in, in.

“How hard can you take it?” Steve asks, and electricity jolts across Bucky’s brain, frying everything that even resembles a word. How…

How hard…

He blinks up at Steve looming above him, blue-tipped hair flopping over his forehead, the blond gone dark with sweat. Bucky’s lips tremble uselessly before he remembers how to use them. He huffs a laugh.

“How hard can you give it, pal?” He throws the gauntlet and Steve actually leers. It fades quickly, his tongue coming out to push against the ring in his lip. Bucky doesn’t realize this is something Steve does when he’s concentrating until he’s being fucked within an inch of his life.

Except it’s not the fucking itself that’s hard. It’s that Steve makes every single thrust count. When he’s not lowering himself enough that friction catches Bucky’s cock between their stomachs, he’s angling up just so, building up pressure that mounts and mounts.

It’s relentless and Bucky’s whimpering and begging and scraping at his back. But Steve doesn’t stop. Steve tells him once that he would, that Bucky’s just gotta tell him to, but Bucky won’t. He won’t because on top of everything Steve is the best thing he’s ever felt, his cock buried inside of him, his gorgeously small art museum of a body looming above. And those eyes, staring down at Bucky with dark determination.

Bucky wraps his legs around him, heels digging into the backs of Steve’s thighs. And they roll together harmoniously, sound waves blending into a music made of groans and pants and sliding skin.

Steve pulls Bucky up so he can capture his mouth, licking hot into it before he moves on to Bucky’s jaw. Bucky falls back onto the pillow around the time that Steve’s mouthing at his clavicle and the hollow of his throat. Fuck, he can hardly breathe. His cock is trapped between them again, streaking pre-come onto both of their bodies with every thrust.

Every thrust that Bucky can feel deep inside of him and, oh, the world is starting to go white at the edges. He’s a train hurtling toward sweet oblivion.

“Steve,” he chokes out.

“Yeah, Buck?”

“I’m gonna come.” His voice is hoarse and needy.

“Good.” Then Steve bites roughly into the skin over his collarbone and Bucky cries Steve’s name, his body uncoiling so fast it nearly gives him whiplash. He twitches between them, groaning with every spurt, his orgasm slicking over both of them with every thrust of Steve’s hips.

When he can focus on reality again, he finds Steve back up on his arms, staring down at him with wonder. His temples are shining with beaded sweat.

“You gonna?” Bucky asks, one hand already coming up to run across the shaved part of Steve’s hair where the short strands have clumped together in the most gorgeous way imaginable.

Steve nods, his tongue pressing against his piercing again. A slow pump, enough to make Bucky’s mouth hang open. Another. Bucky experimentally tangles his hand in strands of blond-blue and tugs hard. Steve hisses, groans “fuck” from somewhere deep down in his belly, and twitches inside of him.

A moment later, he falls onto the mattress next to Bucky, groping for his night stand and producing an asthma inhaler from the drawer. A couple puffs and his head rolls back toward Bucky.

“Nothing sexier than this,” Steve jokes, taking another puff.

Bucky reaches out and touches him again, brushing through his hair before trailing his fingertips down Steve’s pierced ear, then down his neck and shoulder.

“You’re right. There’s nothing sexier than people taking care of themselves,” Bucky says, and he leans forward to steal a kiss. “Surprised you didn’t need it sooner though. I don’t even have asthma and my lungs haven’t been working since you walked into the coffee shop.”

Steve shrugs and gives him a soft smile that makes Bucky’s stomach flutter wildly.

“How many inhalers do you have?” Bucky asks, inching closer, just close enough that their knees touch. They’re both still too warm and damp to tangle up in each other just yet. Bucky keeps trailing his fingers up and down Steve’s arm, tracing the lines of paintbrushes somehow made to look like flowers in mid-bloom.

“Three.”

“Where do you keep them?”

“Pocket, but I threw my pants over there,” Steve says, pointing. “Then the night stand and the medicine cabinet.”

“Pocket, night stand, medicine cabinet,” Bucky repeats. “Right?”

“Right.” Steve reaches out and splays his palm over Bucky’s chest where he’s got _Don’t Panic_ tattooed in large, friendly letters. “Why?”

“Because I plan to spend a lot of time with you if you’ll have me,” Bucky says. “Seems like an important thing to remember.”

Steve gives him a faint smile.

“Wait ‘til I introduce you to the glorious world of EpiPens then.”

“At least neither one of us is squeamish about needles.”

“Guess not.”

Steve gets up after that, carefully putting the inhaler back in the drawer before disappearing. He returns with a damp cloth and gently wipes Bucky down—his forehead, arms, and legs first—cooling his skin. Then he cleans off the come streaked across Bucky’s belly. Behind each movement, Steve trails kisses, each of them arbitrarily placed as though there’s some secret map on Bucky’s skin that only Steve can read.

They twine around each other after that, both of them slipping into a blissful afternoon nap that only ends when Steve gets a phone call from work about a new client they’d like him to Skype with in the morning.

By then, it’s time for dinner and then Steve has to go to the venue, but he promises Bucky there’s a spot on the guest list for him before they part ways on the sidewalk.

Hours later, Bucky posts a photo of him on Instagram with a post-performance Steve. In it, Steve is dripping with sweat, his shirtless torso glistening, his eyeliner smudged around his eyes. As far as photos go, it’s a shitty one—dark and grainy and tinged a pukey green by the venue lighting. But Bucky and Steve are both smiling wide with teeth that look neon.

“ _Maybe this holiday isn’t so bad. #HowlingCommandos #TheRack_ _Brooklyn_ _#HowliesReunion #SorryDernierButTheFillInIsCuterThanYou”_

Steve’s the first person to like it, grinning at his phone with Bucky sprawled across his lap in the green room.


End file.
